Working with the superstar blogger and her rapidly growing consumer brand

Web Design & Development / eCommerce

Ella Mills is the founder of the wildly popular food blog Deliciously Ella, which she originally started during her journey to recovery from Postural Tachycardia Syndrome.

She had faced huge hardships including difficulty walking, sleeping for over 16 hours a day and chronic pains. When traditional medicines failed to remedy the situation she turned to focussing on her diet which started to make a real difference.

Ella used the blog started to share content on her approach to healthy eating with the inventive recipes she had tried.

It wasn’t long before she had a following which has grown exponentially along with global recognition. She brought out the first of her hugely successful cookbooks in 2015 – and it became the fastest selling cookbook in history.

Key considerations

Sitemapping

We reviewed the existing information architecture of the two legacy sites (blog and separate MaE Deli / online shop) with a view to creating a single streamlined offering. Following a content audit and migration plan we created a revised sitemap as a blueprint for the project.

Consolidation

The new site consolidated two sites so that Ella’s blog, ecommerce store and online presence for her MaE Deli locations would sit on one domain moving forward. The new site makes it easier to highlight different propositions under a single unifying brand and maintain a single codebase going forward.

Improved SEO

Moving to a single domain required us to setup appropriate re-directs so that all inbound links would direct users to the correct pages on the new URL structure. Moving forward SEO efforts will now be concentrated on a single domain rather than two separate sites.

Consistent user experience

The new site not only serves to provide a single touchpoint for the brand, but also employs a fully responsive layout to provide a seamless user experience across devices.

A word from

Ella Mills / Founder

“The Strawberrysoup team have been great. Their designs are fantastic and have really helped to bring my site to life. They’re an easy team to work with, really quick to respond and always happy to help.”

A word from

Scott / Project Manager

“We worked to a tight timeframe with Ella and her team to ensure as smooth a transition to the new site as possible. Overall the new site is a significant improvement and a solid platform on which to build on moving forward”

User experience

The new site was focussed on being both visually appealing and easy to use. It now better reflects Ella’s ethos and brand. Intuitive navigation enables key content to be accessed quickly and easily, and we’ve capitalised a lot more on Ella’s beautiful photography.

The events area was fully redesigned and redeveloped to ensure users could find upcoming events and book via the relevant external service. We ensured that video from her YouTube channel was prioritised with its own area dedicated to updates, blog and book recipes and My Week vlogs.

Satisfying results

We’ve increased traffic to over five million visits per year, reduced bounce rates and boosted event ticket sales and book purchases. We’ve also significantly increased engagement with mobile users, who are now spending more time on the site and accessing content relating to the MaE Deli more than ever.